A United States federal court has sentenced a Nigerian national, Tochukwu Albert Nnebocha, to more than eight years in prison for his role in a long-running international inheritance fraud scheme that targeted elderly and vulnerable Americans.
According to a statement released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday, Nnebocha was part of a sophisticated transnational network that operated for more than seven years and defrauded hundreds of victims across the United States.
Court documents revealed that Nnebocha, 44, and his co-conspirators sent hundreds of thousands of personalized letters to elderly individuals, falsely claiming to be representatives of a bank in Spain. The letters informed recipients that they were entitled to a multimillion-dollar inheritance supposedly left behind by a deceased family member.
Victims were then instructed to make several payments for alleged delivery fees, taxes, and other administrative costs before they could access the inheritance. In reality, no such inheritance existed.
The DOJ said the scheme defrauded more than 400 victims of over $6 million.
Authorities disclosed that Nnebocha was arrested in Poland in April 2025 and extradited to the United States in September 2025. He pleaded guilty in November 2025 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud.
At sentencing, the court imposed a 97-month prison sentence, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered Nnebocha to pay more than $6.8 million in restitution to the victims.
The Justice Department noted that this is the second case linked to the international fraud scheme, adding that eight co-conspirators from the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, and Nigeria have already been convicted and sentenced.
Investigations were led by the US Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations, with assistance from the FBI’s Legal Attaché in Poland, INTERPOL, Polish authorities, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, and the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs.
The case is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Phil Toomajian and Trial Attorney Joshua D. Rothman of the DOJ’s Criminal Division Fraud Section.
